Blackett Strait

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Blackett Strait separates the large round island (Kolombangara) from Arundel to the south and Gizo to the west.
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Blackett Strait separates the large round island (Kolombangara) from Arundel to the south and Gizo to the west.

Blackett Strait is a waterway in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It lies between the islands of Kolombangara to the north, and Arundel Island (Kohinggo) to the south. It connects Vella Gulf to the west with Kula Gulf to the east.

During the Solomon Islands campaign in World War II, the Battle of Blackett Strait was fought here between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Navy on the night of 5–6 March 1943.

A battle which military historians would not believe even merited a name, but became famous in American popular culture was in August of 1943, when John F. Kennedy's PT-109 was rammed by a destroyer, and saved by local native's Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana in a dugout canoe.